Monday, December 13, 2010

Plastic Crazy (credit cards)

I worked this past Saturday. It was dead so of course when your tied to a phone and desk the only thing to do is search the net. While on the net I came a cross the most stupid thing. It happened quite innocently, I was on the phone with a client who had a new visa card and wanted to know a symbol meant that was above the first four digits. The client was asking if it meant something like she was getting a new insurance. I had no idea so I googled the kind of card she had and up popped lots of pictures of her card. I clicked on one and after I finished with the client I glanced down to see the site I had lifted the picture from. Turned out to be chat forum from redtag.com which is a Canadian last minute getaway site. The topic peaked my interest so I went back to the first page.

The first post which started the forum off was a question: What do you carry in your wallet?

As I read more and more of the posts, the form developed into 'how many debt and credit cards do you keep in your wallet.' Some people posted pictures of their plastic cards lined up others just wrote them down. Now if your going to take pictures its always best to black out the personal stuff like your card number and name. A lot of people forgot to do this, talk about stupid. That's like jumping up and down and asking for identity theft or fraud to happen to you.

One thing that was really shocking was the shear number of things people kept in their wallets. One woman has 18, that's right 18 little pieces of plastic which consisted of 8 debt cards and 10 credit cards!!! I had no idea one person was allowed that many credit cards. The kicker was the same woman had 4 more at home all credit cards that she was debating about getting rid off but she hadn't decided if she could 'life with out them' no joke! Another person boasted about how he spends $3,000 a year in annual fees for his card and how it gets him in to the VIP lounges at the airports. That's a lot of money to waste of semi-conferrable chairs at an airport.

Another thing that blow me away the shear number of doubles. People who would have multiples of the same card all with different accounts. What is the point of that, can someone explain that to me? It might be because I was looking for it unknowingly but a lot of posters had visa cards from the bank that I work for. Some had multiples of the annual fee cards that we have. Which means there are people in this world with 2 identical cards that they pay $140 a year for. Don't people know that 2 of the same kinds of cards doses not give you better or more travel insurance?? o.O

This web forum was like a bad collision, terrible to look but addictive you couldn't take your eyes off of it. I was tempted to post the second question: how must is your consumer debt?

3 comments:

I don,t have a credit card, I use a debit card where needed and my ATM card when I want to make a cash withdrawal. My largest debt is to a recovery agency who bought over my bad debt, when Hubby got ill I maxed out the card and with only one wage coming in I could,nt afford to make my minimum payment. At the time I had maxxed the card out to $4.500 but by the time I was able to start clearing off this debt interest had brough the debt up to over $7,000.

And thats with only one card how do these people cope if it all comes tumbling down about their ears. So no cards for me not even one little teeny tiny one !!!!!

I completely get it. I have one credit card and when I started this blog I didn't put it up because I was able to manage it and was bring it down at a nice rate, then something happened and I had to use it, so back up it went. It's only has a 1,000 limit and even that is to much for me. In Canada now we have prepaid master cards and visa cards. The next card I get is going to be one of those. Load it up and use it but no debt at the end! Sounds like the best idea to me.